BYD EV teardown in Japan reveals secrets to its affordability | Hacker News Reader

BYD EV teardown in Japan reveals secrets to its affordability

insideevs.com

154 pointssegasaturn284 comments

I think electric cars need to be simpler. They should be more like economy cars of today with the drivetrain simply swapped. No touchscreens, no fancy door handles, no cameras, etc. Those features should be optional with some trims. They need to be reliable and long life to maximize raw material efficiency. Imagine the Chinese electric cars are similar to this but the article is lacking much detail.

I also think it would make a lot more sense to have an auxiliary diesel heating system. This would be much more effective than electric heating and likely generate less carbon emissions (at least until we transition to carbon neutral energy infrastructure). A gallon of diesel would last for months if it was just used for heating the cabin, and it would improve the range. It might even be an effective solution for keeping the battery at optimal temperatures but obviously a lot of math is required here to see if the tradeoff is worth it vs integrated battery heating.

>>No touchscreens, no fancy door handles, no cameras, etc.

We own a Volkswagen e-Up, it's exactly like this. We love it too, it's just such a great little car, you can easily get 150 miles out of its 32kWh battery and it fits everything, has no touchscreen, good old buttons for the climate controls and even proper analogue gauges for speed and battery level. I will own it until it falls apart.

>>I also think it would make a lot more sense to have an auxiliary diesel heating system.

I honestly doubt that anyone would like the "convenience" of having to fill up the tank for it with diesel every now and then.

>>and likely generate less carbon emissions

CO2 - yes. But these heaters(and devices like Webasto etc) are hugely polluting because unlike the exhaust from your engine their exhaust isn't filtered or treated in any way, all the bad stuff goes directly outside.

>>A gallon of diesel would last for months if it was just used for heating the cabin

No, it wouldn't - I own two cars with a webasto and they both use about 0.4L of fuel for hour of operation, it's not much but it's not insignificant.

Besides, this is a fixed problem - just use a heatpump instead of a resistive heater. A 500W heatpump will produce as much heat as a 2000W resistive heater.

I don't understand why your Webasto is using so much fuel. I use one to heat my sunroom in the winter and 2.4 gallons lasts me several days. A small, insulated cabin should require much less.

Because it also heats the engine as well maybe? Also I guess a car loses heat much faster than your stationary cabin because the flow of air around it as you drive is very good at taking the heat away. Also there is no insulation anywhere.

Anyway, from its spec sheet it says it can actually use up to 0.6L/h at full load:

https://www.webasto-comfort.com/fileadmin/webasto__media/web...

Full load is way too much unless you're arctic trucking. The lowest setting is plenty for my sun room until it gets below 20f or it's especially windy. This uses about a gallon in 6 hours.

But you're right, without any insulation, the moving vehicle will lose heat much faster. The room has terrible insulation but at least it has bare brick for the bottom 3 feet which probably retains a lot of the heat. I suspect with proper insulation your fuel usage would be drastically reduced.

OP's rate of usage equates to using 2.4 gallons in about 23 hours. Assuming you are only using yours during the few hours a day the sunroom is occupied, several days sounds about right.

Yes i run it 6-8 hours a day when I'm using the room. It really surprises me how effective and cheap it is vs a space heater. A solar powered heat pump would be even cheaper, I suppose but this solution was only about $200 to build. I doubt a heat pump would last long enough to pay for itself unless i could figure out away to cheaply acquire and install it.

The reason we went with 4y old leaf and not brand new e-up was that it looked like a coffin made out of matchbox. Compared to leaf which is still simple and conventional but has much more space to absorb impact and full of safety features.

Well....if you don't like the look you don't like the look. But it used to have full 5 stars on NCAP testing until the forward collision avoidance system was made mandatory and it's was never fitted with one by VW. For us the Leaf was a lot more expensive than the e-Up with less range so I wasn't interested.

> A 500W heatpump will produce as much heat as a 2000W resistive heater.

Isn’t this highly dependent on the outside temperature?

It is. Modern high-efficiency single stage air-source heat pumps will only have a COP of between 2-2.2 in -20°c/-4°F, so your 500W heat pump would output 1000W-1200W of heat.

However at 0°C/32°F this bumps to 3.5-3.8, so you'd be getting much closer to the quoted 2000W.

If you're operating in -20°C or below for much of the year a heat pump might not be the best option, but even in Yellowknife that's only three months of the year and it's still twice the heat per kW.

I guess it's a concern if you live in Norilsk?

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/docs/documents/1117/cop_h...

> Volkswagen e-Up

I'm pretty these will never be sold in the US, unfortunately.

They have been discontinued now.

Touchscreens are how electric cars are simpler and cheaper. Buttons, knobs, their wirings and linkages are surprisingly expensive once you include fully load the cost (ie, wiring is often done by hand).

> Imagine the Chinese electric cars are similar to this but the article is lacking much detail.

No, Chinese cars are usually loaded with gimmicks. Even the $10,000 Dolphin has two screens.

> This would be much more effective than electric heating and likely generate less carbon emissions

Even more efficient is to utilize the waste heat from motors, as a proper heat pump system does.

What really kills the range of an EV in the winter is bringing the battery & cabin up to temperature at the beginning. Once the car is moving, the heat pump can scavenge heat from the motor to relatively efficiently heat things. So if you pre-warm your car while it's plugged in the range loss isn't too bad.

Diesel heat would prevent you from doing this because you can't run a diesel heater in the garage. So ironically, a diesel heater could reduce your battery's range even though it doesn't use battery power.

That's a good point but I can't understand how it would add up vs servos or other electric air controls vs a manual lever that physically opens the baffle. It really doesn't make sense to me how an lcd can be less expensive than a bit of metal and plastic in a switch but I suppose you're right due to economies of scale.

The cost of the vehicle components is a surprisingly small part of the overall cost of a vehicle. The cost of the line time and the additional tolerances to fit those cheaper components is vastly higher than the cost of stuff they're going to install anyway.

Being able to separate design decision timelines on how the UI works from manufacturing timelines is also very helpful organizationally.

I think these are the right answers. LCDs are already wired and don't need someone's hands to do it. And you can, in software, however late you want in the process, add a button for this or remove a button for that. In software development this is a given, but in real world manufacturing it's like a super power.

The touch aspect itself is really cheap. The big benefit of screens over "simpler" instruments is that regulations actually vary quite a bit across the world. Being able to use a screen that can display anything greatly reduces the sku count, simplifying supply chains and assembly lines.

It would be hard to justify not using a screen these days, IMO.

> It would be hard to justify not using a screen these days, IMO.

Unless you were concerned about the safety of someone having to look at a screen to operate vehicle controls. Otherwise you could just make it a smartphone app and ditch the screen entirely.

That would be atrocious (but not really much worse than the all-in-one infotainment screens we already have...) But my gut says automakers haven't gone there because it would make support and liability that much more complicated - "the operator was distracted at the time of the collision... but they weren't trying to turn on the defroster, they were watching Youtube!" On the plus side instead of being stuck with a never-upgraded head unit, with an orphaned 3G modem, you'd at least have connectivity that kept working.

I should have been more clear. I meant the gauge cluster. TBH, having physical controls for things like climate, wipers, and lights makes sense. I can't imagine the cost difference is meaningful.

I doubt if it's actually cheap. "The touchscreen" aka 2DIN radio/infotainment head unit slot, is required for Japanese market, as Japanese users require one of indigenous options installed for all cars. Google Maps supposedly had gotten better but aren't quite replacing it, so CP/AA doesn't work. I believe this is a unique country requirement, as many Chinese EVs as well as many European low-end cars seem to ignore it.

Not every cars are made for Japanese, far from it, but abolition of LCD based map-radio on a standardized slot is a weird hill to die on, so every cars has it anyway.

And, I think, this is where the actual "it's cheaper to..." argument begins: since every cars will have the standard issue map-radio, it _can be cheaper to move buttons into it_. Differences between the standard version and one with this context is whether the cost of the entire 2DIN screen is included in it or not - if the screen cannot be removed, to shut up whining Japanese or not, it becomes sunk cost and becomes a constant term of equation, which physical buttons have no chance of winning.

Try pricing out physical switches at your local electronics shop sometime. How much does say, 20 or 30 of them cost? How much a 7" touch-screen LCD cost?

Then consider how long it takes to wire up and install the LCD versus 20-30 switches (plus mounting brackets, plus functional testing etc.)

Regulation forces the manufacturers to have the LCD in the car because rear view cameras are mandatory.

Right off the bat all radio controls are free if tossed into the software.

Then why don't all the 3rd world cars use touchscreens?

Touchscreens are more expensive than buttons and knobs. But screens are required by law in the USA and EU as they require backup cameras. And a digitizer is a lot cheaper than some buttons and knobs.

I'm confused. Are they more or less expensive?

My presumption is you meant cheaper?

Screens are more expensive than buttons and knobs.

Making the screen into a touch screen with a digitizer is cheaper than buttons and knobs.

So if you already have a screen, making it a touchscreen is indeed cheaper.

They aren’t more expensive to start with though. A small touchscreen is <$10 in large orders. This is why you can buy entire android phones for <usd$30 with no vendor lock-in.

Wiring in a set of buttons and knobs costs more than a small screen. The buttons and knobs are more ergonomic. The real answer to the above question is that it’s happening already. All new cheap Chinese (or anywhere else that caters to the developing world) made cars have a touch screen and fewer hardwired controls.

He means that you already have a screen, and you might as well put a digitizer on it and save the cost of the buttons.

Because building software is hard. If you can do it though …

It’s happening. The mg3 is very common in the third world and has touch screens now in the latest model. They have a few buttons on the wheel but the majority of features are on the tiny touchscreen in the center. If you see cars in the 3rd world without touchscreens they are older models is all. Sometimes it just takes a while for the new cheaper way to do things to become widespread.

Firstly, they're often older cars shipped from richer countries if it's a better deal than scrapping.

And for new build cars, they often lack a lot of the entertainment and safety systems required in western countries, so they also don't have the onboard computers that would run the touch screen.

When your car already has a backup camera required, so it _has_ to have a screen, and add at least handsfree bluetooth phone connectivity, bluetooth audio and digital radio since I haven't seen a new car without them for years, you have an onboard general purpose computer already. Switching to a touch screen is a small marginal cost over that, and you can lower costs by removing physical controls which not only removes the part cost, but also labour cost of installing, wiring, and quality control.

Also all the features not found in cars for low-cost markets don't need controls, so even if physical controls cost more per-item than touchscreens the total number of controls is much lower.

Where do you live? Everything you said could be a mental exercise in this third world country: It makes sense, but it is not reality.

New cars in here (at least chevrolet, isuzu and toyotas) are being shipped with a touchscreen. As you say, it covers the camera display, the infotaiment and map navigation. Everything else still has manual controls, THANK GOD. For instance AC, lights, wipers.

I currently have a 2017 Mazda Bt50 it didnt have the touchscreen. It does have a rearview camera, and the image is displayed in a little square screen in the central rearview mirror. It also has a frontal camera and both of them can record video continuosly. You can have Features without a "general purpose computer"

The most common transmission is manual, automatic costs around $1000 more. Why? Market preference. We do have some poorly maintained roads, and some dirt roads, mind you.

The only reason to ship all controls in a touchscreen is because it is fancy, and since it is already there, they want to save some money by not including physical buttons.

Well I _live_ in New Zealand, but the area I'm most familiar with is the pacific islands. The cars there are mostly used exports from Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

That's also true in New Zealand, half of the vehicles registered here every year are used imports from Japan, normally 5-10 years old. We don't get the low-cost models though as our safety standards are higher, though you do see Kei cars and trucks. When they can't be sold here anymore they get re-exported to the islands, and generally they make it back here as scrap.

There _are_ brand new cars of course, with the full suite of touch screens, but they're out of reach for most people. Even here in NZ we get feature-cut models to keep the price down.

As for 2017, the cost of large touchscreens was much higher then, and the general purpose computer that was definitely running it behind the scenes was much slower.

And as I said in my post, it's certainly for cost saving. Manufacturers realised they could save a few cents on controls and dollars in labour per car by using the touchscreen they were going to add anyway and there was enough compute power to make it responsive enough to sell. Plus a touchscreen look shiny and most people won't realise the problems until it's sold...

I think the importance of heatpumps is overblown. If you go for a highway trip, your car consumes 10kW+ and 1kW heating won't matter much. Additionally, on longer trips the cabin's already warm, no need to run the heater that much.

Kinda. Im leqd to believe heatpump is a $50 device that manufacturers charge $2k for (must be more to it honestly).

If that saves 10% of range that’s 10% less batteries which cost more than $50. Eventually all these savings add up so much that EV is lighter and cheaper than similar ICE vehicle…

> Im leqd to believe heatpump is a $50 device that manufacturers charge $2k for (must be more to it honestly).

Turning an AC unit into a heatpump is indeed pretty simple, but that type of heatpump doesn't work well when the temperature gradient is too high.

What you'd need to heat a car during winter is a "high temperature heat pump", which usually requires multiple stages, different thermal fluids, etc.

That's a much more complex and expensive system, not well suited to vehicles.

AFAIK in cold climates they use different refrigerant like methane, but that’s even more expensive.

Expensive why? Methane itself is dirt cheap.

Not sure. Maybe higher pressure or corrosion means beefier gear.

As an owner of a EV, who regularly sees over 20% of the energy used during the winter goes to heating the cabin, I can't agree.

It regularly gets cold enough here that the the temp gauge on my conventional ICE barely rises over an hour without covering the cooling vents manually. We're wasting enormous amount of energy on non-insulation/inefficient temperature control

I can real-time adjust my car's range by changing the temperature and fan speed. As I bump up the temperature, the range computer immediately goes down in significant increments. It's not been proper cold here since I got my EV, but at the moment I'm seeing about a 30km range decrease with cabin heating on.

Where on Earth is a Dolphin only 10,000$ ?

Probably mixed up with the BYD Seagull which is indeed USD$10,000 (before tariffs).

The ocean maybe

I'm under the impression that electric diesel pre-warmers are relatively common, in cold climates? (Or engine block heaters, basically a fancy electric blanket at cheapest) Every diesel person I knew growing up had one, partly because they needed it when it got truly cold.

For the mid-cold regions though, yeah - I can believe that.

In cold climates in Europe, diesel pre-heaters (such as Webasto) are pretty common. Compared to petrol, diesel cars have a harder time starting at low temperatures, and take a long time to warm up.

Where I live (-25c during winter) houses typically don't have garages where cars are kept. Modern apartments have underground parking, but the temperature often stays above freezing.

Coincidentally, Webasto supplies the home EV charging equipment for many of the major brands including VW, Ford, GM.

Nesr the arctic electric block heaters are common. Almost every parking lot in Fairbanks has power outlets at each spot for block heaters.

I have this thing called a “furnace” that heats my home using no. 2 home heating oil (more or less: diesel).

How is a diesel heater different than my furnace? Why can’t you run one in your garage?

Your furnace has a chimney going to the roof. If the diesel heater was part of the car that presumably wouldn't be possible, so you wouldn't be able to use it in a garage.

Got it. Thank you kindly. Wasn't thinking of it that way.

We are now in an era where physical things are expensive. Making a physical knob that actuates things requires machine tools, skilled labour and standardised parts. Compared to a digital widget which eventually can just be coded by an LLM, we are never going back to physical controls unless safety demands it.

>unless safety demands it

Interesting that the market is so held hostage that you didn't even think to mention that the market could demand it.

Do people actually prefer touch screens? I know I don't. I won't buy a car unless every function I need while driving is on a physical knob or button.

If I have to press on a touch screen every time I start the car, this test drive is over.

> This would be much more effective than electric heating and likely generate less carbon emissions

Perhaps in the case of an EV using resistive heating, however, most have moved on to using heatpumps.

Heatpumps have COPs that range anywhere from 2 to 10. Which means for every 1kWh in, you get 2 to 10kWh of heat out. A resistive heater has a COP of 1.

Fossil fuel power plants operate at ~40->60% efficiency, which means that past a COP of ~2 you are going to be more efficient for heating even if your power source is directly from fossil fuels. It's sort of neat.

When talking about generation mixed grids (which most are now) the COP level needed to beat having a diesel burner for CO2 output plummets.

But one more point to consider, a modern EV needs an HVAC to ensure the proper operating temperature of a battery. The thing that killed the old Nissan Leafs was the fact that they didn't have any sort of cooling system for their batteries. Put those in hot climates and you are talking major and fast degradation.

So, it wouldn't even be (much) lighter to omit the heatpump. To convert the HVAC system for the battery into a climate system is pretty much just requires a single valve.

Cars should be Being Your Own Infotainment ready and support that.

Software is a cost center. Your car company probably isnt going to win on it. Enable everyone else to compete to be a good infotainment for your base car.

They already are. Android auto and Apple carplay use your smartphone's brains to display on the car's touchscreen.

Could we just like... have a standard for this already? Instead of two proprietary protocols that do the exact same thing... All it is, is a display and touch screen.

The point is the car shouldn't have a touchscreen. It should have a spot meant to let you bring a phone or tablet.

I'm curious how much control is offered on these Android Auto systems. Ideally in my mind, there would be protocols for controlling windows, sunroofs, seat controls, HVAC, interior lighting, windshield wipers, defog, maybe even running lights headlights cruise control & those closer to the driving experience aspects. The whole car experience should be BYOD.

EVs are full of gimmicks because battery cost never hit $100/kWh and they have to justify the premium over ICE, that's it.

I though we hit sub $100/kWh in 2024?

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-lithium-ion-batteri...

That's a stupid number with inflation in the last 3 years.

Anyway, sodium ion will scale to less than that regardless of inflation.

A sodium ion battery should cost 40% of nmc.

> I think electric cars need to be simpler.

Look at the Dacia Spring. The entry level barely has a screen at all, and no camera, not even a backup camera, it doesn't even have a display for it. Also: no A/C, no thermostat, no rear power windows. You have to pay if you want these, and even if you take the "premium" model that has a touchscreen, it is pretty basic, essentially that's just a display for Android Auto / Apple Car Play, and you get a backup camera.

That's what you would expect for an economy car. It is less than €20k. Unfortunately, it also has a pretty bad range and overall performance because of its small battery. Of course, batteries are expensive, and it is a cheap car. It means you won't get far with it. That's unlike "A-segment" gas cars (ex: Fiat 500) that while not the most comfortable, have no problem driving cross-country.

you know indian tata tiago ev and new MG Comet EV?

The thing is....we have a Volkswagen e-Up as our second car. Gets around 120-150 miles range at most. And you know what? In the 3 years that I owned it, I never got even close to running out. Never had to fast charge it either, simply because we never took it on any journey longer than that range. And yet we use it literally every day. And I suspect for most people in situation similar to ours, the same would be true - you just don't drive more than ~120 miles in a regular day just going to work and back and dropping kids off at school and going shopping. So Dacia Spring is actually fantastic for that segment - it doesn't need to have that long distance capability, because most people don't need it.

Biggest problem with Dacia Spring might be its 1-star safety rating.

Ah yes, also pedals in case you run out of battery. And a tullock spike so you drive safely.

The only reason Tesla succeeded is by making sexy car.

Sure we are at the cost point where you can making boring EV. It would cost almost the same and only appeal to 1% of market.

So basically an electric bike?

> The only reason Tesla succeeded is by making sexy car.

I don't think so. They succeeded because the batteries made by Tesla seems incredibly good. A Model S owner I know swapped his batteries after... 280 000 km (175 000 miles). They seem to live long and have better mileage.

But neither the Model 3 nor the model Y nor the model X are "sexy": they just have a weird shape. Although I'll grant you the Model S is good looking.

To me the german, Porsche and Mercedes for example, make way better looking EV cars than Tesla and with much better interiors. But inferior batteries.

They succeeded by making an electric car that looked like a normal car not a glorified golf cart or a cartoon car. Secondly they had decent/usable range for many use cases, and they had good performance.

I don't know whether Tesla batteries are actually better than average. What Tesla absolutely does better than average is their battery management system. Tesla does an exquisite job of keeping their batteries at the optimal temperature and never overcharging them or charging them too fast.

Any lithium battery -- even a bad one -- will last much longer with a great BMS.

The people buying Teslas must have a absolutely odd definition of sexy. I put them at a 4/10 at best. Shit I put my daily driver Civic at 6/10 because the driver cockpit is phenomenal and has a significant amount of attention to detail for a cheap car, but I have driven many high end 6-figure cars as well.

My Model Y accelerates from 0-60 in 4.4 seconds. That to me is sexy. Flooring the pedal in my car feels like being launched into orbit. And my car is among the slower models Tesla makes.

Can your Civic do that?

I'll answer for you: No it cannot.

https://www.zeroto60times.com/vehicle-make/honda-0-60-mph-ti...

We all have different definitions of sexy.

Sexy tech and sexy performance. Buying car for it’s looks is super dumb.

Admittedly i’m talking about first generation cars - roadster and S. Cars that decided Tesla’s fate.

Buying a car for straight line performance is what's dumb.

Less dumb than caring about exterior. I am the one using car - it’s better be comfortable and fit for purpose rather than meet someone’s elses expectations.

I agree we should actually limit top speed and acceleration so people don’t use them as weapons so much.

In a way - nerf and desex the cars.

Agreed. Sexy cars are used for showing status and attracting women to have sex with you.

This is dumb because you can just have sex with your hand. Logically why even involve women? On this regard, you sir are a genius.

Arguably it’s the most common form of sex

>>The only reason Tesla succeeded is by making sexy car.

I literally don't know anyone who thinks Teslas look sexy - they are like bars of soap, nothing "sexy" about them. But I also know plenty of people who own them, because of their superior battery tech, crazy efficiency, and the supercharger network. I don't know anyone who bought a car because it's "sexy" maybe other than one friend of mine who bought an Alfa Romeo Gulia because it "looks cool" - the argument that it's just a rebranded Fiat Punto never really worked on her unfortunately.

Model S and Roadster are sexy enough - they are the cars that decided teslas fate.

Mind you the competition at the time was only a Prius, which only last year became reasonably good looking.

Model 3 and Y are worlds best selling cars. By definition they have to be boring.

You're missing the point.

EVs weren't really economically viable at the entry level. Tesla was the first company to figure out how to design, style and market an EV for higher end customers at price points where it could actually compete decently against ICEs both on paper and in actual ownership experience.

I don't think Gulia and Punto have much in common. Did you mean a different car?

Ah yes I meant the Alfa Romeo MiTo, sorry got this wrong.

My friend has a Mitsubishi kei van Electric and it’s exactly what you describe. It’s just like a regular kei van but electric. It is a wonderful, wonderful car. Because of the low center of gravity of the heavy battery. It has no roll around corners like a regular kei van. It’s like a sports car. It is as simple as a car could be.

Only thing that’s missing g for me is a 4x4 model.

It seems like all the cars like this are only available in Europe

Kei cars are a Japanese thing. Mostly unavailable in Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car

Japan has no particular restrictions on exporting used cars but US does for importing cars younger than 25 years old, famously lobbied by Mercedes to block parallel third party imports of their entry level products from cannibalizing American sales.

Europe do not have that particular import restriction, and if someone wanted to personally import and register a brand new wheeled fuel drum with appropriate paperwork, they can.

>No touchscreens, no fancy door handles, no cameras, etc.

Those things cost a few dollars now. This isn't the 00 where it was advanced tech. Physical buttons cost more.

> more sense to have an auxiliary diesel heating system. This would be much more effective than electric heating and likely generate less carbon emissions

Is this true? Honest question. My understanding is that for cars in general (implicitly driving range), electric cars are lower impact on the energy grid as a whole (ignoring last mile) because of how energy intensive oil is to refine.

Is it that diesel specifically is less energy intensive because of how it differs in refinement to petrol? Or is it that because heating is effectively 100% efficient it doesn't matter that you're using the energy in refinement?

Mostly the latter.

Some of it comes down to the rocket equation because it takes a lot of energy to warm a battery up. If that energy has to come from a battery itself, then the vehicle needs even more battery. Carrying around that extra battery all the time will consume even more energy. And you lose about 8% total electrical energy by putting it through the lithium battery.

In comparison two litres of diesel fuel with a nearly 100% efficiency can absolutely be more efficient from a full-system standpoint.

Might as well do a phev then, if you're going to have a heater engine, get some electric recharge as well.

What in talking about here is a mostly EV with a 100 ish all electric range, and the diesel/Atkinson adds even more tange

Everything you just said can be applied to regular cars as well.

> They should be more like economy cars of today with the drivetrain simply swapped.

This is how most first generation EVS from legacy car makers were made, and they dramatically underperformed in range, performance, and comfort due to the assumptions, parts, and manufacturing methods inherited from ICE cars.

New wave of car makers too, Tesla's first was built on a Lotus platform.

Will purpose built EVs have better ride quality than an ICE platform with electric motor?

I'm not sure what the ride quality has to do with that - it's 100% down to the suspension setup and choices made by the manufacturer, regardless of the drive train. You can have a small city car with amazing plush suspension, and a big long distance cruiser saloon with break-my-back suspension because for some reason the manufacturer made it "sporty" and "nurburgring tuned" - different strokes for different folks.

> I'm not sure what the ride quality has to do with that - it's 100% down to the suspension setup and choices made by the manufacturer, regardless of the drive train

Suspension isn't infinitely adjustable without other tradeoffs, including cost. Batteries are already very heavy compared to ICE drivetrains.

That might be fine for an expensive car like an Audi or BMW that have a high end suspension anyways (probably even driver adjustable), but that probably won't fit into the budgetary constraints of a more affordable vehicle.

First gen EVs also didn't have lithium batteries.

My presumption is that batteries have been expensive enough up until now that it's been most sensible to target upmarket without sacrificing specs vs ICE. My expectation is as prices continue to fall cheaper and cheaper cars will become commercially viable.

Cheap EVs suffer the most from the drawbacks that make electric kind of suck (smaller batteries reduce range, more sensitive to heating costs, etc). Once you can shove a 60kwh pack in a cheap car, most of those drawbacks go away.

Sodium ion is a game changer. 40%the cost of nmc, 2/3 the cost of lfp.

Detroit has a "more car per car" kick they go into whenever sales are down. Electric cars were viewed as a premium product in Detroit, and they're still priced that way. This backfired. Batteries got cheaper, US-made but electric cars didn't.

Ford F-150, base price: $39,345, per Car and Driver.

Ford F-150, electric, base price: $49,875, per Car and Driver.

Ford did badly at this. Stellantis did even worse. (Stellantis is the company that ended up with Fiat, Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge.) Stellantis had a big push into crappy mild hybrids (22 mile electric range). Nobody likes them. A few years ago, the CEO was talking about achieving profit margins as large as as tech companies through higher prices and fees. Now, there are unsold vehicles piled up at dealerships, the market share of Stellantis brands is half what it was a few years ago, and Stellantis is getting a new CEO. SHere's what the dealers have to say about that.[1]

[1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25136851/letter_to_ta...

There seemed to a bit of a weird thing that happened with covid. Pre covid things were normal, then when covid shut things there were a glut of hire cars etc which people didn't want when locked down so prices and production crashed. Then post covid people wanted cars again but not enough were being produced, there was a shortage, high prices and people were willing to pay $60k for a car with gizmos, base price $40k as there were none of the cheap ones available. Now we are returning to normal and the $60k ones don't sell.

I don't buy often but I occasionally fly to nice airport and have rented fiat pandas. Pre covid they were from £5/day rent, £7000 odd to buy. Post, rental rates went silly the other way like £100/day. Now about £15/day rent, £13k ? to buy. I miss the olden days of 5 years ago with £7k cars.

I'm not sure manufacturing costs have really gone up 2x in that period? I guess they were probably losing money at £7k.

Touchscreens, door handles, cameras, etc. are what most of the new car buyers are wanting. "Most" but obviously not "all". If I was a salesperson trying to show off a new EV to a customer and it was like a car from circa 2000 that would be difficult. If they had a car that was low on modern tech they would wonder what is so great about a "new" car? If they have a recent model they would wonder why should I give up my current car for this "lesser" car? Thus EVs try to be as premium as possible to convience buyers the vehicle is better.

The people who would gain the most from EVs will probably get them when they start to be more common and cheap. Think how long it took for cheap Honda Civics to hit the road from when the first Fords rolled off the line. Of course, it'll probably be quicker this time around.

I don't know, I think most people just want a cheap car. Dacia sold an absolute metric tonne of the Sandero and Duster, and these cars didn't even have AC in the base spec for the longest time. A basic cheap EV would do the same(and in fact it does already - Dacia offers the Spring following the same philosophy, apparently it is selling really well).

EV economics are a little bit odd. The difference in cost between a base model and a luxury model is smaller than the difference between a short-range and long-range model, just because of how expensive batteries are. Manufacturers are, no doubt, keenly aware of this.

If a manufacturer released the stripped down, no-frills car you're describing, a competitor would release a competing car with all the bells and whistles and slightly less range at the same price-point.

Natural gas seems like a better fit for this.....

If you’re handy you could buy and install your own diesel or gas heater for under $1k. The same type they use for camper vans.

Agree on the simpler part. I don't see the point of these fancy door handles that require power to open. I'd much prefer a screenless dashboard with old fashioned analog display of parameters. And buttons and knobs. Cameras, though, are pretty cheap these days.

> I also think it would make a lot more sense to have an auxiliary diesel heating system

I think a heat pump (which some EVs have now) would be better especially if it could pump heat away from the engine and batteries.

The car you describe is illegal. Backup cameras (and thus a screen too, though needn't be a touchscreen) have been mandatory on all new vehicles since 2018.

* In (very) few countries

The new EV from car manufacturer Caterham has no entertainment just screen mirroring to reduce its weight [1],[2].

As for air conditioning (heat and cold) there's more efficient heat pump system that's being used by Tesla that's 3 times more efficient than the conventional system [3].

1) Caterham V: Lightweight EV sport car without infotainment (just phone mirroring)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41719818

2) Caterham Project V:

https://caterhamcars.com/en/models/projectv

3) Heat pumps make new Tesla more efficient:

https://heatpumpingtechnologies.org/heat-pumps-makes-new-tes...

> Imagine the Chinese electric cars are similar to this but the article is lacking much detail.

I've ridden in the dolphin and it has two screens and a bunch of tech attached to it (including gps directions). It's the cheapest BYD car. Two screens + CPU cost probably less than $300. Software doesn't incur extra cost per vehicle.

Look at what Dacia is doing with their cars. The cheaper models literally come with a phone mount and nothing else. I think there are some buttons for climate etc.

All of that would make them more expensive. The digital tech is actually more affordable than the analog tech, and even a backup camera has a huge savings on mirrors and allows for more compact pillars. Old cars are cheaper because they are old, not because they are somehow cheaper to make.

Absolutely. Simple, and modular - with wide availability of (perhaps 'universal') replacement parts.

We're observing in real time - mostly via skyrocketing insurance rates - the impact & unsustainability of expensive, all-proprietary parts. Vehicles are getting totaled out now more than ever for things that should be repairable.

Speaking of diesel - what I really want is a simple plug-in hybrid truck or SUV (e.g. a USA Toyota Hilux or 4runner) with ~50-80 miles of battery-only range, and a diesel generator for 'indefinite' range extension.

The article is a bit confusing.

The basic concepts here are 1) integrating the motor, rear axle, and differential into one unit, and 2) integrating all the high voltage electrical components and their controls into another unit. This doesn't mean the electronics are down at axle level.

If you look at a modern "E-Axle", it's a wheel and axle assembly with a modestly sized motor mounted on the side of the differential.[1] These are BYD E-Axles for large vehicles. Others integrate those into buses and trucks. The car-sized versions would be smaller. The E-Axle component contains all the "greasy bits", as automakers use the term. Looking at those things, you can see them going together easily on an automated assembly line. No need to work at funny angles, assemble big objects around other objects, or other assembly hassles. No shafting or belts - just wires.

This is reasonable enough. It is, however, a major change from traditional automaking priorites. Traditionally, The Engine was the core vehicle component. Final drive, differential, and axle were way down in priority. GM's worst plant used to be Detroit Gear and Axle. (It was bought in 1992 by a startup guy who made it non-union, wrote a book about it, and then went bankrupt.)

So it's a bit of a shock for auto companies to find that the axle people are now in charge. An electric car needs only an e-axle, a battery, and a HV electronics box as the power train. That comes from the power train supplier. The vehicle manufacturer adds a frame, wheels, body, interior, and dashboard. It all plugs together with CANbus.

[1] https://dotto-tech.ca/byd-e-axle-%26-system

I was aware that BYD was initially a battery manufacturer OEM and then went into EV's.

This drive 'unit' that BYD is using across their vehicles is that for internal use only? Or is it also being sold as an OEM part for other manufacturers to produce their own branded vehicles?

BYD's FinDreams unit sells powertrain parts to OEMs.[1] The E-Axle for trucks seems to be available. They don't seem to promote the car-sized version. Mostly, FinDreams sells batteries. Mostly, BYD sells entire vehicles. They're big enough that they don't have to be a parts supplier to others.

Tesla talks big about making a semitruck, but BYD is shipping them in quantity, and DHL is buying them. Range about 200 miles, which is enough for the daily trips of most local trucks. They're not trying to do long-haul trucks yet. Just take over the local trucking market. BYD isn't selling cars in the US much, but they make trucks in Los Angeles.[2]

Quietly, local trucking is going electric. Especially in China and Europe.[3] The US lags in electric medium trucks.

Ford CEO Jim Farley called the BYD Seagull “pretty damn good.” If US manufacturers don't keep up with BYD, “20% to 30% of your revenue is at risk.”

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/company/findreams-technology-co-ltd...

[2] https://en.byd.com/truck/about/

[3] https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ID-57-%E2%80%...

Very interesting movement in the industry. I can see why European Auto industry is getting up in arms with EV's out of China.

BYD is a state-backed enterprise with unknown levels of profitability when full subsidies are accounted for.

Tariffs will be needed by countries that refuse to create state backed companies but which also want an automotive industry and a manufacturing base that can make weapons of war.

Lieutenant, I think you forgot one detail: customers.

The same customers who might now have jobs instead of seeing them shipped offshore?

The purpose of an economy is not to increase shareholder value when the majority of the shares are held by .1% of the population.

The purpose of an economy is neither to produce things that are so expensive that people cannot afford them. Since Western auto companies have failed, they should admit defeat, the leadership (and shareholders) should admit they are failures, and maybe open the doors to those who can make products which customers can afford.

Car factories have used robots to make cars for decades now. The cars should have become cheaper with time, not several times more expensive. And if the factors making cars unaffordable for the average citizen is beyond the carmakers control, then those factors should be adressed. But tariffs sure won't make cars cheaper.

The purpose of a system is what it does and the economy definitely does what you described. Not saying that ought to be the case but unfortunately it is.

Which still doesn't solve the problem: the real issue is that Western companies are financialized to the max. That's why Elon repeatedly lies to get a stock bump. Also, why companies like Google, Boeing, and Intel allow product quality to degrade, as long as they can prop up stock price for the next quarter.

So, tariffs won't solve anything. Which is why despite the Jones Act, China builds 200x more ships that the US.

Or, hasn't Tesla received billions in government assistance? what about the major automakers that'd have crumbled around 2008 if not for the US gov. pouring rivers of cash into them?

So, protectionism is only a band-aid: it doesn't change the fact that American businesses have developed a short-termist culture that only cares for the next quarter.

If you want long-term thinking then people have to be able to buy into stories about what's going to happen long-term. When Musk does that, you call it a lie. The benefit of financialization is that it provides cheaper access to capital, which should make long-term investment easier, not harder. America still has lots of capital intensive industries that are capable of thinking long-term. I don't think financialization has much to do with the strategic problems that many American companies face.

At the same time that Intel was allowing product quality to degrade, Nvidia, a 30 year old company, was continuing to innovate.

No, I don't have a personal axe to grind against Musk. I'm just pointing out his persistent, repeated lies. Being an engineer, he should be able to gauge their capabilities accordingly, or at least make those optimistic predictions closer to the finish line.

"Lies" is pretty charged phrasing for what are explicitly declared as best-case timeline estimates, which the media then loves to (disingenuously) revise into "promises."

The not-so-big management secret is that even if Musk took your advice and sandbagged his timelines, then the timelines still wouldn't be met. However it would move the actual time of completion further to the right! By using best-case predictions, things are actually getting done sooner. Call it the Applied Parkinson's Law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_law

https://motherfrunker.ca/fsd/

A lot of these are promises, and most of the timelines are not "best case", they were clearly not going to happen.

Even if it somehow gets things done faster, lying to your customers is not acceptable.

They've been selling something which doesn't exist for years, as a fixed fee, or subscription. Most large companies end up walking a tightrope of getting away with as much as possible. But FSD can only be described as a lie, a euphemism if you're feeling generous [1].

It's a company worth unthinkable amounts of money. Most people would have less patience with a guy running a Patreon in his spare time who had claimed for years his supporters would have a product soon, let alone an organisation swimming in funding (Twitter debacle aside).

[1] https://www.pocket-lint.com/is-tesla-fsd-worth-it/

If you think it’s just a short term ist culture you’re out of touch.

People in China have a work ethic, capability, and intelligence that can eclipse the US.

I was wondering what would happen if either

1 The feds told American car makers that they would release the tarrifs if they didn't release an electric car under $xx,xxx (15k? 20k?) in the next x years, or if

2. they made the tarrifs naturally diminish over time (from 10k to 9k to 8k) to give American companies a runway but slowly pressure them to improve their offerings.

I'm far from a policy expert here. I just wish we could put some price pressure on them without entirely ceding the industry.

I can see both policies you suggested working out fantastically, if followed through. Legacy American automakers would panic at first before they get to work. But, if these automakers can lobby for tariffs in the first place, why would they hobble themselves by giving these tariffs a deadline?

They can simply maintain these tariffs till forever, effectively doubling the price of any car out of China. The US population is essentially a captive audience.

Also, judging by America's antagonistic politics, any Party that opens the market to Chinese cars would be branded traitors & enemies of the working man and they'd likely do poorly in state and national elections.

> BYD is a state-backed enterprise

And Tesla isn't? https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-201...

GM, Ford, and Chrysler (now Stellantis or whatever they call themselves) could easily be described as the same with all the subsidies and trade protection they get.

For example, aero headlights were not legal in the US for ages until Ford wanted to use them in the upcoming Taurus. European and Japanese companies had to use US-specific headlights, usually sealed beam units.

This nonsense still goes on today. Why do you think CCS has a unique-to-US charge connector? To make things more expensive for foreign car companies.

Then we have the insane "must be built here" restrictions...

Chinese subsidies are an order of magnitude larger, which makes it a difference of kind (according to various government treasury departments).

Tesla got $300million for battery swapping and $1 billion for a Buffalo solar plant. Many other billions total with federal and Nevada, Texas. And various state incentive programs.

Their partner Panasonic is a keiretsu and I think has gotten billions in EV battery related subsidies overall.

BYD I think is similar order of magnitude to the two partners combined.

> China gave BYD $3.7 billion to ‘win’ the EV race.

That amounts to $1k per vehicle, so China subsidies are an order of magnitude smaller than US or EU subsidies.

https://electrek.co/2024/04/12/china-gave-byd-an-incredible-...

We're experiencing an existential climate emergency. It's a good thing for a state to heavily invest in green technology for export.

USA and EU should be doing the same.

Looking only at raw subsidies for the main company is bad for both western and eastern manufacturers as it skews to what is published and forgets tax breaks, local subsidies, subsidiary subsidies, subsidies down the supply chain etc.

That is a nearly a 10-year-old article with a self-serving definition of subsidy.

Next thing you know, having affordable and quality state unis pumping out a huge number of engineers annually will constitute a state-backed subsidy :)

> Tariffs will be needed by countries that refuse to create state backed companies

Which countries are those? All western car manufacturers are backed by the state as far as I'm aware.

> All western car manufacturers are backed by the state

As far as I can tell, this is entirely incorrect when it comes to European car companies. In the US, beside bailing out GM in the 2008 crash, they do give government loans to some car companies. But I don't agree that giving loans that equates to being "backed by the state".

Giving massive subsidies to consumers to purchase said EVs does make them state-backed, however.

In Europe at least, the subsidies are for any electric car, not just European made cars.

Backed by politics not necessarily subsidies.

Do you think the German state of Lower Saxony would hurt its 20% shares of Volkswagen?

Or what about the exemptions for power costs for high usage companies?

Maybe not car manufacturer specific but still a kind of subsidy.

Every country does more or less obvious.

While this is a valid argument, it is disappointing the US domestic industry gets a pass after pivoting their assortment heavily toward luxury vehicles.

Tesla has basically been the only domestic automaker taking risks and aggressively pursuing manufacturing efficiencies.

There are all sorts of unacceptable national security tradeoffs that come with allowing domestic industrial capacity to diminish and China to own more of the automotive supply chain, but the industry is also going to be less competitive long term, and consumers are going to have fewer discretionary dollars.

"Tesla has basically been the only domestic automaker taking risks and aggressively pursuing manufacturing efficiencies."

Sometimes too aggressive which may come back and hunt them.

For example, multiple companies are doing full body casting but Tesla moved very fast and ended up selling cars that now have cracks in them. There is a reason it took others longer time to introduce this in their factories...

https://www.thedrive.com/news/tesla-model-y-owner-finds-scar...

The situation is much worse for Chinese manufacturers. Some of these cars are death traps.

At this point we aren't going under 2C, so if they want to make those cars cheaply, I'm all for bringing them here to sell, we bailed out our auto MFG and we are literally in the same spot/ mfg preference, with SUVs as we were when they failed last time. US MFG have not done the work, let the chinese ones who did in. Most US MFG heavily outsourced anyway, it isn't like letting the chinese cars in, is that much different.

If we were just optimizing for climate yes, but because that policy would decimate the manufacturing base for war machines, it gets more complicated. Either way, the climate gets better because China is the largest influence.

Imagine if the west was smart enough to have state owned companies that work towards saving our future regardless of the profitability.

But no, we have to buy overpriced pieces of shit because God forbid we touch one hair of the "free" market

> God forbid we touch one hair of the "free" market

Except for the subsidies, no bid government contracts, tax breaks, loan gaurantees and eventually piles of cash for when they blow through all of the above and run out of money.

Unlike those backwards communists we are proud free market capitalists.

We have free markets as the ideal. China has collectivism as the ideal.

Both have given up on some parts of ideology in the face of the real world.

Relevant: https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-ceo-driving-xiaomi-su7-...

"The CEO of Ford says he's been driving a Xiaomi EV for the past 6 months and doesn't want to give it up"

People like that drive cars like that because they're interesting and being forced to live with the thing makes him better understand it and why any given aspect of it is a pro or a con and for who in what situations it has nothing to do with whether it's overall a good car for sale in a particular market at a particular point in time.

The CEO of a major car company saying a foreign phone companies car is "fantastic" and he "doesn't want to give it up" is sending a far stronger signal than you are admitting here.

People are saying the secret to Chinese cars is putting bits on the axle or whatever but I remember like 20 years ago stories like this

>...China has pulled way ahead of the U.S. and the rest of the world by one key measure.

>China graduates in excess of three times more engineers — electrical, industrial, bio-chemical, semiconductor, mechanical, even power generation — with bachelor's degrees than the U.S. university system. https://eu.jsonline.com/story/archives/2017/08/02/china-engi...

and now maybe it's bearing fruit.

When USA and Japan wake up from their gasoline obsession the world would have moved on and Asia, South America and Africa would be on Chinese Evs. Europe will drive EU made cars from Chinese and European brands.

How much does a scooter cost vs a Chinese EV in Asia?

A scooter is 3k RMB in China.

Japan has a hydrogen obsession more than a gasoline one.

Yep, they saw long ago that gasoline was on its way out, and decided hydrogen was the fuel of the future. Unfortunately, it seems they bet on the wrong horse, and now are extremely reluctant to admit this and try to change gears and move to EVs.

And this obsession relies on their nuclear fleet to generate green h2 cheaper

If the problem is cheap generation, you could do a lot worse than solar. My understanding is that storage and transmission is a huge obstacle too.

[flagged]

>every one of them will fold within the next 3 years

The same way China has been predicted to collapse every year since 1990? No matter how much money you lose, you can grow yourself out of it. Which is why OpenAI can raise $6b at nearly $150b, despite losing $5b annually. So, why do you suggest the CPC will let BYD - their EV golden goose that has thoroughly thrashed Western competitors - to fail?

Parent was fairly explicit that BYD won't be allowed to fail, but the rest don't have the same state-funded assurances.

The idea that an economy with so much production would fully collapse is kind of far-fetched, but it also seemed like there were some major issues last I looked. Their housing bubble did burst and there have been periodic bank runs. I haven't been following Chinese news for a while now though so I couldn't tell you where things ended up.

No, not like that. This is a case where China has offered disgusting subsidies to anyone willing to make an EV. And therefore tons of companies have done so with no intention of ever really being a car company

Please do provide a source for these “disgusting subsidies”

Yeah I was thinking the number of them:

>According to Bloomberg, there were 500 Chinese electric car manufacturers in China in 2019. After fierce competition, only 100 manufacturers remained by 2023. According to Wired, as many as 300 manufacturers, both domestic and international, were offering electric vehicles in China in 2023. (wikipedia)

looks more like a capitalist free for all than a few state appointed winners. BYD got a big boost in the early days when it got investment from the US company Berkshire Hathaway, rather than the Chinese govt. Which was because Charlie Munger thought the founder seemed like a new Thomas Edison.

The reason there were 500 manufacturers in the first place was the enormous subsidies.

The Chinese government strategy is to fund a massive number of attempts and then suffer a huge number of failures and consistent end up with far too much production capacity leading to a large number of unprofitable companies.

It’s not a terrible strategy if you can dump vehicles elsewhere. It may or may not work if you can’t.

It’s not stupid but it’s probably a bad strategy.

Who predicted Chinas imminent collapse back then? It was certainly not a mainstream prediction.

More serious predictions have been made in recent years. And lo and behold we got Evergrande. The news since that has not been great. Some successes, and progress, yes. But also more and more deep fundamental issues brewing under the surface.

Nobody of note has claimed China will collapse over night. This is a process that spans over years if not decades.

The predictions of collapse have had demographics as its primary factor. People don’t go from 40 to 70 overnight. Yet the demographic factors are completely undeniable and its consequences bearing out year by year relentlessly.

And that is on top of a debt to GDP ratio which is utterly insane if you include shadow banking.

“CPC”, eh? Hmmm..

> when the EV company disappears, your car is now a worthless block of metal.

This sounds like a problem, but it doesn't have to be. I've driven cars from brands that no longer exist and some parts were a challenge, but largely you could make everything work. It's unfortunate that new cars aren't like that. :(

EVs (and all newer cars) aren't really comparable to a car from the 90s or early 2000s. Finding spare parts is one thing, dealing with electrical issues is a much bigger beast.

I drive a 24 year old Lexus - mechanically, an absolute tank. Electrically? Well, it's relatively "electronic" by the standards of its time, and it shows. If I coughed up the money to fix the handful of little electrical glitches it's picked up over the years, I'd be paying more than the car is worth. It'd cost more than all the other work I've done on it combined.

The headlights don't switch on automatically anymore, and you have to manually lock all of the doors (except the driver's door which mysteriously still works). I can live with that! The powertrain isn't inundated with electrical stuff, which makes it less susceptible to the weirdness that comes with aging sensors, rotting wire harnesses, corroding electrical contacts, moisture ingress, and so on.

losing money because of heavy competition, because of free market, too much competition. not because some evil intent to sell below cost. Every auto exec is complaining the market is too tough.

Parent account is two months old and looking at his comments, practically all of them are bashing China. 2 Questions: 1. Does your org. really think this works? and 2. How much do you get paid for doing this and where can I apply?

OP means original poster but don't you mean parent?

Sorry my mistake.

>and when the EV company disappears, your car is now a worthless block of metal.

If enough people have this problem at once someone will make big bucks solving it.

Maybe they should try a good US EV, like the Fisker?

We've banned this account for using HN primarily for nationalistic battle, as well as several of your other accounts doing the same. That's not allowed here, regardless of which country you have a problem with.

Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. It will eventually get your main account banned as well.

Generally I think it's much more useful to link the orignial, rather than the churnalism article written about it.

https://cn.nikkei.com/industry/icar/56879-2024-10-09-09-00-2...

Although it's in Chinese, Google Translate can help you out.

The TLDR version is that BYD integrates many components of the electric drivetrain into a single sub-assembly, and shares said assembly between multiple vehicles to achieve volume cost savings.

Which is fine for bringing the costs down, but keep in mind their cars have zero repairability, which might be a concern, considering the engineers though the components aren't protected well enough agains water ingress.

Although, I admit my skepticism might be unfounded. I've owned the same car for close to a decade, and I haven't replaced anything besides consumables and fluids.

How can multiple vehicles share a drivetrain?

What do you mean? Multiple vehicles can use the same electric motor and battery, exactly the same as ICE vehicles share the same engines across different model lines.

It was meant to say that multiple vehicles share the same drivetrain model, not the same unit.

I find your reply even more confusing than the question :P

They use the same design of part in multiple different models of vehicle instead of designing a new one with small differences

It means multiple models share the same design and components. It doesn't mean multiple individual cars share literally the same gears and whatnot.

From the (translated) article:

One of the characteristics of ATTO3 is the promotion of component integration. In the electric drive device "E-Axle", in addition to the motor, inverter, and reducer, a total of 8 components such as the on-board charger and DC-DC converter (DC voltage converter) are integrated. This can reduce component costs and reduce weight.

Timeshare.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type–token_distinction :)

> The TLDR version is that BYD integrates many components of the electric drivetrain into a single sub-assembly, and shares said assembly between multiple vehicles to achieve volume cost savings.

GM has been doing the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultium

This website does not make it seem as though the BYD Atto 3 is so great in terms of efficiency:

https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/energy-consumption-electr...

Seems breadly comparable with the Model Y LFP, slightly less efficient, slightly larger battery, lower price.

The BYD is less expensive and has the design and tech that people will like.

But it is not comparable with a Model Y. It has half the cargo capacity, cannot tow, has a puny rooftop load capacity, significantly less payload, etc. If you are a small family running around town, the BYD is fine.

If you are taking a trip with adults and luggage, the Model Y will do things the BYD can't.

If you are taking a trip to IKEA and buying things that aren't particularly heavy but are bulky and box-shaped, the Model Y will carry far more than the BYD, with seats folded in a way that has less probability of damage to the longer boxes, etc.

Model Y is more than double the price. Not a fair comparison.

Goodness, if only someone would enumerate some reasons why the BYD is not broadly comparable to the Model Y.

> not great ... in terms of efficiency

Is how this thread started.

And a similar sized car with the same LFP batteries has a similar efficiency to the Model Y. Tesla has generally been regarded as making efficient EVs.

edit: probably worth mentioning that the Teslas with LFP use BYD made batteries.

second edit: and for those unaware, the LFP batteries are safer and cheaper, but their key drawback is that they are less energy dense.

This both explains a key Chinese EV advantage (LFP is about half their market) and why comparing them with non LFP cars on efficiency is misleading.

I thought it was because China was subsidizing the cars a ton. Or have they really cracked EVs and economies of scale just got them there. Maybe a bit of both?

Most of the direct subsidies ended in 2022.

That's how you bootstrap a disruptive technology. The west also subsidizes EVs, but in a weak and disorganized way.

Bit of both. But they are cracking along on the tech front, especially the batteries.

What does this high level of integration mean for repairability? Lack of/difficulty in repairability can raise lifecycle costs or reduce longevity. The latter is especially worrying for lifecycle carbon emissions.

The upside is that parts availability will not be a problem if basically all cars on the road use all the same important bits.

> Lack of/difficulty in repairability can raise lifecycle costs or reduce longevity. The latter is especially worrying for lifecycle carbon emissions.

Sunsetting ICE's in Human transport (specially in urban environments) is an Environmental and Public Health benefit that far outweighs whatever carbon estimation you make.

I am a recent hybrid drivetrain -convert [Camry, this year]. For most Americans I think hybrid vehicles are the current "best solution" — simply because our infrastructure already has phenomenal gasoline distribution capabilities. I can drive many hundreds of miles on ten gallons of gasoline [~50mpg real-world city driving].

When I lost power for 48 hours this past summer, I spent about 2 gallons of gasoline (already in my Camry Hybrid) to keep my refrigerator and computers running (using a 12VDC->120VAC inverter). Despite owning a beastmode 9000W propane/gasoline generator, the only reason I'd need it would be to run air conditioners...

Using the SDS+ hammer drill off of an extension cord sourced from my car [instead of a flatbed w/ generator]... makes for great jobsite conversation topics.

As a rarely-political American, I do think the tarriffs on BYD are unnecessary and ultimately bad for most of us "just citizens."

"producing as many of the components as possible in-house and integrating them."

So the complete opposite of modularity and repairability, and therefore, sustainability. When anything on the e-axle breaks, you'll likely have to replace the entire thing, which might well be uneconomical, so you'll scrap the entire car. Maybe part of the low cost is all the savings they make on repair documentation, etc.

A more interesting question is why are EV's built in the West so expensive.

Cost of labor is much higher. Safety regulations are more strict. Environmental protections are more strict. It's more expensive across the board.

Is paying more for a product that meets higher safety standards and more environmentally friendly a bad thing?

No, probably not.

That said, the lowest pricing point is a massive competitive advantage.

The Chinese made cars meet the same safety standards as US and EU made cars (at least the ones sold outside of China do).

I thought GP was talking more about the safety standards for workers in the factories - which do cost more to meet.

> Is paying more for a product that meets higher safety standards and more environmentally friendly a bad thing?

If end user does not care about these moral high grounds, then yes it is a bad thing for business.

Look at profits of legacy auto. It’s not the labor, they’re prioritizing profits over investment to deliver on EVs (kicking the can and making it the future’s problem).

They are simply following the market.

Hybrids have become increasingly popular as the charging infrastructure is still lacklustre in many parts of the world. And that's not a problem that can be solved overnight.

Even if EV charging was ubiquitous, legacy auto would sell what nets them the highest profit, which is not EVs. China’s EV market is hypercompetitive, and does not suffer legacy auto type incumbents. It’s why US automakers will likely leave China.

At least we have BYD and Tesla, just gotta scale up faster. Global light vehicle TAM is 90M units/year. 20% of all vehicles sold globally last year were BEVs or PHEVs, onward and upward.

https://fortune.com/2024/06/19/elon-musk-tesla-china-carmake... (“Bank of America tells Detroit’s Big 3 they can’t make money in China and should just leave the hypercompetitive car market ‘as soon as they possibly can’”)

> They are simply following the market.

So is global warming. This excuse rang hollow 30 years ago and it still rings hollow today.

Or maybe the rest of the world has way less population per area and therefore more gas stations, therefore filling up was less of a problem compared to the US...

Not sure how much it matters.

I am thinking about getting a third car for the farm if I could get an inexpensive low range EV. If I am only driving to work with it or to go shopping or see a sports game at my Uni I can just it when I get home. If I need to go see a game in a distant city, well, I’ll take one of the gas cars so my son will take the EV and not the Buick to work one morning.

Sadly (for myself) the only compact-ish plug-in hybrid that exists in my part of the world (Australia) is the Cupra Leon. Neat car, we're genuinely considering it, but it's $80,000AUD, vs. the $50,000AUD that a top-end hybrid Corolla would cost. And they're still much more expensive than my partners VW Polo... worth it for us, as we have a one car shared between the two of us, but I wish there were more compact-ish hybrids available.

Honestly same goes for EVs, though the BYD stuff is starting to fill that niche quite nicely. And compact + decent range is sort of at odds with itself.

> They are simply following the market.

This is badly misinformed. They make the market. When you buy a car, do you have it custom made, or do you select one that actually exists?

That's exactly what happened with SUVs. SUVs didn't happen because people were begging car companies to make them something big, dangerous, and wasteful. They happened because car companies in the US found a legal loophole where they could cut costs by skirting safety and emissions regulations, while simultaneously marking up the product as a premium one. Then they ran ads to tell people SUVs were super safe [for the passengers]. So when people started buying SUVs en masse, that wasn't organic demand, it was the result of a successful national misinformation campaign (because modern SUVs and other "light trucks" are so large you're more likely to just drive over your own child without seeing them than even get in a crash).

CEO salaries for comparison:

Jim Farley (Ford CEO): $26.5 million

Mary Barra (GM CEO): $27.8 million

Koji Sato (Toyota CEO): $3.88 million

Atsushi Osaki (Subaru CEO): $1.05 million

Makoto Uchida (Nissan CEO): $4.5 million

No idea what the compensation for auto executives in China is, but probably even smaller than Japan's.

Sources:

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230925-uaw-auto-strik...

https://www.automotivedive.com/news/gm-ceo-compensation-fall...

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2024/0...

Taking just Ford, they sold 1,995,912 vehicles in 2023 [1]; assuming it's divided evenly across vehicles, CEO compensation adds $13.25 to the price of a Ford. Probably CEO compensation is less substantial for a BYD vehicle, but it's just not a large component of the cost.

EDIT: Fixed the math, thanks mperham, I had $1.35 earlier.

[1] https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20America...

What about the entire C suite?

$1.32 per car is a lot!

My math ($26.5m / 2m) says you're off by an order of magnitude: $13.25

Just FYI, they will choose a component that is 1 cent cheaper over the one that worked for years without any problems. They could give you an actual usable navigation but they don't want to spend 1 extra dollar for the controller.

The OP said "Look at profits of legacy auto. It’s not the labor, they’re prioritizing profits over investment [...]". Are you arguing that this is incorrect by showing some examples of large labor expenses these US auto companies have? My understanding is that profits is what is left over to be paid to shareholders after they stop spending on employees/investment/opex/etc.

There is also the choice of whether or not they make affordable cars.

In the 1970s my dad had the worst time trying to buy compact cars from US dealerships, in the 2000s I thought US automakers were as bad but Japanese brands were better, by 2018 or so Japanese dealers were using the same toolbox (“You’re saying I can’t buy a Honda Fit because the factory washed out in a flood but you have 100 SUVs in a row that nobody wants to buy made in the same factory?”)

Then I got home and I am sure to read some article in the auto press which repeats, like the brainwash soldiers from The Manchurian Candidate that Americans only want to drive huge vehicles. Sure, an American might want a size L vehicle on average but from their point of view it is a disaster that somebody would could possibly buy a $50k vehicle walks out with a $25k vehicle (that Sales Manager won’t be able to work you over for another decade) so they will try to sell you an XXL vehicle.

Tesla, GM, Toyota and many others have refused to make affordable EVs, it’s that simple. Their hope is that a 100% tariff on BYD means they’ll never have to service the affordable vehicle market.

You're missing one of the principal actors here. It's not GM or Toyota selling you a car, it's a dealership. The dealership is only viable if they average $2-4k per sale. That margin simply doesn't exist on a $10k car, so they don't even want to offer it except to get you in the door.

Manufacturers in turn (except Tesla) have no one to sell these vehicles, and would have to take a risk that they could make up the lost margin on volume. They don't have the cultures to do that either.

I would be thrilled to pay 12-14k for a cheap electric car with moderate range, rather than 50-100k for an expensive one with 50-100% more range and all the bells and whistles.

Existing contracts aren't structured as a lump sum they can just tack on some margin for and dealers don't fully control their margins. There's half a dozen "incentives" that are given as percentages of sale price plus whatever additional fees they can throw on that need to equal that margin. It's not that these are impossible problems, but they require coordinated action in an industry that's full of mutually hostile parties.

>Tesla, GM, Toyota and many others have refused to make affordable EVs, it’s that simple.

I think GM is at least trying, with the sub-$35,000 Equinox EV. And the rumor is that the 2026 Bolt will be ~$30,000. Definitely going to be interesting to see what comes around in the next couple of years with battery prices falling.

https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/equinox-ev

I can't imagine the recent tariffs have helped much, either. Less competition and pricier parts is a bad combination for consumers.

They have cheap ICE cars

For one, they have spent years shedding all their talent and outsourcing all their components.

Now they are the mercy of their vendors, with limited knowledge of how to do things any other way than to keep depending on them.

Sometimes there are only 1 or 2 vendors they can pick from, with so little competition, it is no wonder the prices keep going up.

If Tesla actually focused on making a cheap car, I am sure it would cost far less, but instead they need the Model 3 to be a cash cow to make up for all the other dumb decisions being made.

Maybe, but base Nissan Leaf is $28k off the lot today with L2 self driving. Sure, air cooled battery, CHAdeMO, hatchback design... but it's not like those deficiencies would cost full $15k/car to fix; it's not like Big CHAdeMO is burning that much per each Leaf. So that kind of "Tesla would have this and that" arguments don't really hold water.

That said, my model 3 performance is faster than any car under $100k and costs less than half that. So it’s actually cheap for what it is. Comfier too.

I love my 2018 M3 but can't bring myself to buy the new one due to lacking USS and no blinker stalk - absolutely baffling.

The blinker stalk you just get over. Found myself pressing the nonexistent button on my ford truck the other day. The lack of USS was a concern for me too. I test drove a 2022 with USS and had heard a lot about how the ones without were “bad”. Compared to my wife’s car that has USS, my 2024 is vastly superior. The cameras do build a working 2D top-down view of obstacles when parking and of course the cameras let my brain do so too. In short, the 2024 has as good if not better parking than the 2022 I drove, and the performance is even better.

Lack of focus on EV which leads to lower production volume (Chinese carmakers focused on EVs long before Tesla got popular), trend of over-sizing which means it's big and heavy, dogged obsession in road tripping rather than playing to EV's advantage in city driving, and of course Chinese carmakers get/got a healthy dose of subsidies.

In USA, EVs are traditionally built as an aspirational rather than utilitarian article. Tesla will design whatever it wants, make it expensive, and you will buy it if you want to be cooler than your peers. Chinese sell cheap EVs because they're regular cars no one will envy.

Or in a crude analogy, USA sells EVs like iPhones, China sells them like Androids.

A nice stereotype, but it doesn't seem to really match reality. See for example: https://insideevs.com/features/719015/china-is-ahead-of-west... At least Chinese consumers (and increasingly more European consumers) just seem to prefer the Chinese EVs.

The analogy holds in more than one way. For example, iPhones will gain/lose features at the convenience of Apple (even the bigger screen had to wait until a new CEO was in charge). You buy it as it was designed, the same as you buy a Cybertruck. They behave like designer brands.

Chinese EVs are more focused on what people need, and brands have a wider range of offers, similar to how you can find budget or flagship Androids to suit your tastes. They behave similar to traditional auto makers.

>Or in a crude analogy, USA sells EVs like iPhones, China sells them like Androids.

I don't think that's fair to Android phones. Android phones come in a huge range of prices and feature levels, from cheap-o $40 phones with crappy displays but that will do everything you need, albeit with crappy photos, to $1500 phones with much better specs than the top-end iPhone and camera lenses from Switzerland.

Perhaps you mean "utilitarian, budget model Androids".

High-end Chinese EVs are super luxury and beat western EVs on all sorts of specs, and come in all sorts of form factors, so the analogy holds, even if that's not what the original commenter intended.

Check out the Xiaomi car the CEO of Ford drives as just one example.

Model 3 is like $5k more and you get completely different level of tech.

Something not said, but China often lets others do the expensive R&D

Lots of advantages from labor to financing to government subsidies and environmental regulations. It would be nearly impossible to compete with that

> "their views on quality are different from those of Japanese manufacturers."

I'm not sure what the reality is, but this "Japan is special" delusion needs to go. Yes, they have stuff that is top-notch, but this is not a given (just like in China).

For instance, in India, the top auto-manufacturer Suzuki (like other Japanese/Korean manufacturers) is known to skimp on construction quality and fares quite poorly in terms of safety rating etc. This while Indian manufacturers like Tata/Mahindra are coming out with solidly built models that achieve top-scores in safety.

If you look for videos on Indian Social media, you'll almost always find them pan on Suzuki for its flimsy construction - which is esp. concerning since road safety in India is quite poor.

A heuristic does not need to be true 100% of the time to be useful. Subaru were well known for having timing belt issues that caused motor failure for much of the 2000-2020 era, but were still popular. That doesn't tarnish the good names of the manufacturers that people actually think about when they think about Japanese quality.

Of course Indian people are going to promote India brands on Indian social media, even if they aren’t being paid. I would be surprised if I didn’t see that, not if I do see it.

This story is so old, here’s how it goes: Germany used to manufacture the cheap vehicles after ww2 ended, then Japan started getting their shit together and they started undercutting german cars, then German car manufacturers, noticed they were losing market, so they started marketing their vehicles as more premium, better quality and more exclusive, with a higher price tag. They can’t compete in the same market as Japanese cars so they go to a new market, and they genuinely had been manufacturing for longer so maybe the cars were better quality. Then Japanese cars build a reputation as the manufacturing improves and South Korea starts producing cheap cars as well so now the Japanese manufacturers have to market their cars higher up in the market. Then china comes along… next is India, after that Africa. Along with this , in each of those countries goes the increasing number of middle class citizens and rising costs due to better pay and standards for those citizens… Alright this is a oversimplified version but like dude, of course indian social media is going to praise indian cars.

Japanese stuff used to be much better than Chinese but they seem to be catching up.

Affordable - made cheaply - is equated in this article heavily as “better” but that is not always the case. I would still hesitate to buy a Chinese vehicle over safety and quality.

Nah - I own a Volvo XC60 that was built in China and it's about 10x better in terms of build quality than my last Mercedes that was entirely built in Germany and creaked like an old horse cart, I was in the dealership probably once a month fixing various issues with the interior. I've owned the Volvo for 4 years now and it has had zero issues, no creaks, fit and finish is great. So no, I wouldn't be concerned about owning a Chinese made vehicle, not in the slightest.

Was your Volvo in China? I didn’t think any Volvos manufactured by geely were being exported, and production volume was still very low

It was made in China in Chengdou and brought over(by train!), I'm in the UK. I was told by my dealer that conventional petrol/diesel models were made in Sweden, but right hand drive PHEVs were made in China, no idea if that's still the case nowadays.

They are usually made where they are sold, this was probably a special case for your config.

New tariffs will probably stop this completely

There's apparently some dealings in process due to the tariffs being imposed on moving final assembly or trying to use their local petrol manufacturing as a leverage for avoiding the tariffs. No idea about what'll come out of it though.

Even within Volvo's own lineup, my C40, built in China, has had far fewer quality issues than my previous S60 had, which was built in the USA.

Geely made an incredibly smart move buying Volvo.

Ford had run down their reputation by forcing penny pinching cheap designs, but there was still a lot of engineering prowess in-house that had gone underutilized and made them a tech-team to catch up the Chineese tech, design and manufacturing to concurrent standards.

The only lingering worry is if they're gonna find themselves content with the amount of technology transfer and move on (because Volvo standards requires a high price point and non neglible market share).

Motor Trend just gave the Lincoln Nautilus - a SUV made in China - their award for SUV of the year[0] and noted its build quality. While "Made In China" still carries a bad rap, I think that's going to change pretty quickly for more luxury goods like cars.

[0] https://www.motortrend.com/news/lincoln-nautilus-2025-suv-of...

I think there's a big difference between made in China for an off brand Chinese company which tends to be bad, and made in China for Apple/Volvo/Some western brand with quality control, which tends to be very good.

You can and should check euroNCAP or IIHS for independent safety ratings if you care.

BYD's 4 model entered in euroNCAP have 5 stars.

Heh, that used to be German and then Japanese cars.

It's generally acknowledged that the Chinese made Tesla's are higher quality than the American ones.

What does "[insert nationality] vehicle" even mean? Most cars are made up of designs and parts that come from all around the world.

Any discussion of the topic of product origin and quality is always heavily oversimplified.

There are many variables at play here: target marketing, design, manufacture, regulatory environment, etc.

European NCAP has given great marks to BYD vehicles in crash tests. Just google "BYD crash test", most of the results come from them.

Compared to them, my Wrangler is a square death machine, although almost anything is safer than a Wrangler.

Well-designed off-roaders protect their occupants against the kinds of accident that might occur at relatively low speeds on rough terrain, with very rigid frames to prevent the occupants being crushed when rolling over. That is the very opposite design philosophy to most road vehicles, which are protected chiefly against high-speed collisions with other vehicles. The NCAP tests only cover the second kind of accidents.

I don't know whether the off-roading safety philosophy applies to your car though, as many SUVs and crossover cars are only designed to look the part, and are in fact more similar to ordinary road cars in safety design.

Clever design with reusable (between models) components. That’s “efficiency”. Efficient design often means better quality.

All countries that get into car manufacture seem to follow a similar path. 10-15 years of crap cars while building scale and expertise, then maturity with much higher quality. I think we are seeing the mature Chinese car industry now and it’s frankly impressive.

All cars today are being made to squeeze maximum profit. The plastics will last maybe 10 years and the electronics will be NLA soon after the warranty expires. If your main computer dies the car is scrap. There is no serious effort to make new cars repariable or maintainable other than for very routine things like brakes. Cars are becoming more and more disposable items, by design.

I guess you're not old enough to remember how horrible the interiors (both plastics and upholstery) in 1970s and 1980s cars were, nor how often they broke down.

I remember. Yeah they weren't great for the most part, especially for US manufacturers.

The thing is though, those '70s and '80s cars were simple. They could be repaired. And any workshop could do it, you didn't have to rely on the dealership. With not much more than a basic set of wrenches you could repair many things yourself if you wanted to. That's not the same today. Many systems are effectively unrepairable, they are not designed to be repairable. Especially on EVs. Is there any EV that has been designed for easy battery replacement? Once these cars are out of warranty, any major problems will scrap the car.

>That's not the same today.

Yes, it is. My last car was a 2015 model that lasted until 2019, so I don't think my information is out-of-date, but it was a Mazda and was very easy to repair (which pretty much never happened anyway aside from regular maintenance). Any my cars before that were easy too.

>Many systems are effectively unrepairable, they are not designed to be repairable.

Citation needed. People like you always make claims like this, but I think they're all myths. I've never seen any evidence of this myself. Perhaps it's because I didn't have American cars, and only Japanese ones? I don't know.

>Especially on EVs.

This is a different issue, and I can't speak to it as I've never had one. The vast majority of cars were and still are ICE cars, and your claim is about all cars.

>those '70s and '80s cars were simple

You obviously never looked under the hood of a 1980s car, with its maze of vacuum tubing.

I presume you mean you sold it on in 2019 and not that your 2015 car lasted 4 years, as that would not be an example I'd hold up for the quality of today's cars.

I'm not surprised that a 2015 Mazda is a decent car. Mazda make good cars. But I'm speaking of cars made today. 2015 was almost 10 years ago. Cars have only gotten more complicated and less repairable since then.

Yeah wires and vacuum hoses look messy. But you can replace a vacuum hose by cutting a new piece to length with a pair of scissors. Good luck in a modern car when that same function is a digital signal in a circuit board.

Digital signals on circuit boards don't just "go bad" from old age. Vacuum hoses develop leaks all the time when the rubber gets old.

>Cars have only gotten more complicated and less repairable since then.

Again, citation needed. I simply do not believe you. Outside of EV powertrains, car design has not changed much in 10 years.

> The source article highlights the so-called “E-Axle” used by BYD, which is comprised of eight different components. > It includes not only the motor, inverter, transmission and controller but also the onboard AC charger, the DC-to-DC converter and the battery monitoring system (BMS).

Sounds like that if one of those ever needs replacement you might as well just replace the whole car.

More likely you get a cheap replacement from a wrecked car. And when assemblies are common, workshops learn how to fix them.

I avoid buying cars with low volumes and custom parts: if anything is broken then it is expensive and slow to fix.

TLDR: Economies of scale.

I would call out design optimizations as distinct, though maybe economies of scale helps enable those.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com